Colourful, playful and chic, the Majorelle Garden in Marrakech’s Ville Nouvelle was one of my favourite places in the city. Created by the French painter Jacques Majorelle in the 1920s on a barren plot of land, he later built a house, where he lived for the next 20-odd years. In 1947, Majorelle opened the mesmerising Art Deco-style garden to the public, but after he sold it in the 1950s, it fell into decline. The garden was revived in the 1980s when it was bought by the legendary French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, who lovingly restored it with his partner…

We only had a day and a half in Marrakech, which wasn’t anywhere near enough time to see the city’s sights. So we spent most of our time exploring the medina, along with a brief foray to the Ville Nouvelle to see the extraordinary Jardin Majorelle and the Yves Saint Laurent Museum. Dating back to the 1070s, Marrakech’s medina was founded by the Almoravid dynasty and in 1985, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here’s a brief guide to the places we visited in the historic medina… Koutoubia Mosque The most iconic building in Marrakech is also, at 230ft,…

One of the things I was really keen to do while I was in Morocco was to go hiking in the Atlas mountains, which is how I ended up exploring Todra Gorge. The spectacular limestone ravine lies in the eastern part of the High Atlas mountains, not far from the city of Tinghir. We started our hike just after 8am, when we met our guide for the day, Mohammed, at the bottom of the gorge, near a large abandoned building (above). We set off up the narrow mountain path, which was rocky underfoot, but easy enough to follow. The first…

There isn’t much to see in the southeastern Moroccan city of Tinghir, but it makes an ideal base from which to explore the eastern parts of the High Atlas mountains. Located in the Drâa-Tafilalet valley, the city’s close to the spectacular Todra Gorge, where we planned to spend a day hiking. We had a long drive ahead of us to reach Tinghir, so we stopped at a couple of interesting spots along the way to help break up the journey: the Jorf Khettaras and a palm grove by the Todra River. After saying goodbye to the sand dunes of Erg…

Enormous mounds of soft, ethereal, rusty red sand rising from the ground as far as the eye can see – welcome to Erg Chebbi. As far as travel moments go, few are as memorable as watching the sun go down from the top of a huge sand dune in this ridiculously photogenic part of Morocco. Affectionately known as the Baby Sahara, I spent a fun, unforgettable night glamping under the stars at the foot of these extraordinary dunes. We caught our first glimpse of the dunes as we approached the desert town of Merzouga in the southeast of Morocco. I…